Remember Me environment

Hey all, I'm updating because it's been a while and I'm not sure who follows. But anyway, here's my next project.

This is a sci-fi styled project based on Remember Me, a colourful game set in Neo-Paris. This concept grabbed me:

And I'm recreating this inside of UE4. Here's my current blockout progress:

Thanks for reading!

Small CryEngine update

Just posting some of my penultimate updates. I've been tweaking both versions, relit and tweaked asset shaders for the UDK version and added some smaller assets.

This is the CryEngine version shot, which looks dramatic and more interesting than UDK; whether that's to do with the realtime lighting or the fact that I rebuilt from scratch I have no idea. Sure looks nice though!

Here's a UDK flythrough of the level, to some fitting music. The differences in the versions can be clearly seen; the only major architectural difference in the Cry version is the corridor behind the sofa is much wider.

Here's some additional assets I busted out last week; I was seeking a decent way of filling empty space in the scene, and these music and living-related objects seemed fitting.

Thanks for following!

Updates of no particular interest

So this week, I've continued to work on polishing the apartment. i went back into the UDK version (the one I'm handing in) and changed and tweaked.

As you can see, I went a bit crazy with adding things to the scene. I textured a couple more assets and even added some bonus assets.

To give the place some storytelling, I invented a scenario where the hippies, too lazy to was the dishes, would order takeout, presumably with the cash gained from selling all that weed.

To this effect, I created some props to tell this story, and filled the kitchen with dishes whilst putting the takeout boxes on the coffee table.

I also had the time spare to create some "bonus" assets of my choosing to better characterise the scene, and what better than Buddha, a symbol of peace and happiness?  I thought  a golden Buddha would tie in well with the Oriental feel and mellow atmosphere of the scene.

The sculpt turned out nicely and I used a new method of retopology in ZBrush to get the lowpoly. It turned out a bit more rounded than I'd like, but overall the metal looked nice and his addition was a nice compliment to the candles.

The CryEngine scene I will have to work on a little more, but since I'm handing in the UDK scene file, I have two months to polish that version before Expotees.

Thanks for reading :)

CryEngine conversion

The past couple of days I decided to try my scene in CryEngine, and so far it's looking extremely nice. I'm still finishing up the import process, but soon I will start tweaking and adding polish to the scene.

Thanks for reading :)

Helicopter update

This weekend I set about the task of baking, optimising and texturing the lowpoly copter, and here is the result!

I managed to optimise the copter to 15k tris and textured it using a 2048x2048 texture; however, I'm concerned UDK won't be able to handle it too well, so I made a 1024x1024 version.

Not much else has happened, besides the development of additional props.

Thanks for reading!

Flames and cardboard update

Just a brief update on the scene: I've been doing a bit more work, responding to feedback and polishing and tweaking assets.

(lighting not built properly in this shot)

The main addition was the flame effect to the candles/lanterns, which really served to bring the scene to life. To make this, I made an emissive candle texture and flickered it with a particle effect.

Boxes

I've also added the cardboard boxes to the scene. When I first made the blockouts, I intended for them to be separate low-resolution textures; now, I feel it would be more efficient and quicker to work from one 1024/1024, with the ability to downscale if needed.

I crafted the highpoly boxes from using symmetry on the original open lowpoly boxes: this way, I could make my highpoly adhere to the box's construction and I could "fold" the highpoly into shape in Max.

I then took the highpoly into Zbrush and did a quick sculpt to show folds, creases and punctures in the side, lending it some extra character.

The end result came out well and was surprisingly easy to make :)

Surface-Mounted Electrics

The last niggling asset was the electric conduits on the walls; for this I did the standard high-to-low workflow, adding a bit of decorative elements to the metal of the light switch;

The result was quite nice: I again fit all these assets onto a single sheet of 1024/1024.

Future plans are to finish the hookah, which I have a nice highpoly made:

And then, to texture some bongs.

Following that? I can spend the time polishing my work, adding more stuff and tweaking the environment.

Thanks for reading!

Working on feedback, DX11 and guitars

I recently got the opportunity to network, and thus showed the current progress on my environment to various other games developers. I was after some critique, and I got quite a lot of responses.

The relevant feedback was:

• Dark areas of scene were pitch-black, needed at least an ambient blue colour
• Try and reduce clutter
• Check textures against histogram settings in Photoshop to get a better lightmap quality
• Sharpen textures using the Unsharp Mask tool to better bring out small detail
• Windows needed to be brighter

A good point given to me was that my use of warm and cold colours was good, as were my texturing and modelling skills :p

Anyway, working on the feedback, I managed  to significantly improve my environment's aesthetic with very little effort. Here's some screenshots:

DX11

The biggest difference in the scene was the use of UDK's DX11 features, which unbeknownst to me were the cause of the subsurface scattering on the candles failing to work.

The old candles as a result looked unlit and burned with bloom when they were lit due to a mistake I made in the shader.

The new candles may have a much less pronounced normal map (which I will seek to fix), but the subsurface scattering is working, allowing light to enter the object and making the candle appear to be lit without looking like a uranium rod.

Another feature DX11 boasts is the use of local image-based reflections. UDK's version of this uses a flat plane, which captures the scene some space in front of it and then outputs the result as a camera-facing reflection on any surface with Image-based reflections enabled in the material. I used this where the floorboards of the environment are most visible to make a nice enticing reflection.

Side note: If I wee to use CryEngine, the setup in there enables IBR for all surfaces with a high enough gloss map. Here's a shot of how it looks:

It definitely looks more natural, but at a higher performance cost than UDK.

Guitar

The only asset I added in this update is the acoustic guitar. Whilst doing my research, I found that hippie groups are rarely without one of these instruments, and the standard wooden acoustic is almost synonymous with the movement. For reference, my housemate let me borrow his acoustic model so I could study it, and I learned a lot which allowed me to really nail this asset.

I experimented with a stickered version. I was originally going to swath the model in artwork and decorations, but I struggled to find a relevant piece that fit.

I also started adding the first decals to the piece. I seeked the floral pattern from the concept and found a vector of it, then assaulted it with custom brushes in Photoshop to give it that painted look.

My next move will be to texture those cardboard boxes all over the place, and work my way around the few remaining meshes. Then, I can spend time finishing off the helicopter and adding particle effects and extra visual polish. The end is in sight, but still so much to do.

Well, that's all folks. Thanks for reading!